Macy's is one of the stores opening at midnight Thanksgiving night.

Written by

Maureen Wallenfang

Post-Crescent staff writer

As more stores announce their opening times for Black Friday, Nov. 23, many are inching backwards earlier than ever into Thanksgiving night.

Toys R Us announced today it will open at 8 p.m. Thanksgiving night.

Target, also announced this morning, will open at 9 p.m., three hours earlier than last year.

This follows last week’s news that Walmart will start its staggered openings two hours earlier than last year, at 8 p.m. Thursday. It has more doorbuster releases scheduled for 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.

UPDATED: Shopko stores will open from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thanksgiving Day, then reopen at 9 p.m. Thursday night with their Black Friday doorbusters. Shopko Hometown stores located in smaller communities will be open on Thanksgiving Day from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and reopen at 5 a.m. on Black Friday.

The earlier openings are meant to get a leg up on the competition, but some are experiencing a backlash.

A California Target employee started petition on change.org asking that the store move its Black Friday opening back to Friday to preserve the national holiday for its employees. It already has 150,000 signatures. Last year, a similar petition got 200,000 signatures.

Kohl’s and Macy’s, meanwhile, kept their midnight opening times.

Teen stores in the Fox River Mall will open at midnight as well given the surge of young shoppers in the mall last year at that time. The mall doesn’t require stores to be open until 6 a.m. the next morning, but it appears few will wait to open that late.

To see a complete list of Black Friday opening times, see this Friday’s Post-Crescent.